Cities for Profit

Cities for Profit examines the phenomenon of urban real estate megaprojects in Asia—massive, privately built planned urban developments that have captured the imagination of politicians, policymakers, and citizens across the region. These controversial projects, embraced by elites, occasion massive displacement and have extensive social and economic impacts. Gavin Shatkin finds commonalities and similarities in dozens of such projects in Jakarta, Kolkata, and Chongqing.

Shatkin is at the vanguard of urban studies in his focus on real estate. Just as cities are increasingly defined and remapped according to the value of the land under their residents’ feet, the lives of city dwellers are shaped and constrained by their ability to keep up with rising costs of urban life. Scholars and policy and planning professionals alike will benefit from Shatkin’s comprehensive research. Cities for Profit contains insights from more than 150 interviews, site visits to projects, and data from government and nongovernmental organization reports and data, urban plans, architectural renderings, annual reports and promotional materials of developers, and newspaper and other media accounts.

List of FiguresPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Origins and Consequences of the Real Estate Turn2. Comparing State Agendas of Land Monetization3. Planned Grabs4. Experiments in Power5. ChongqingConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Cities for Profit

"Cities for Profit is theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich. It provides a comparative lens focusing on the role of the state in Asia's real estate turn. It is an ideal and useful text for graduate-level courses on comparative urbanism, urban politics, international planning, land development, and the state–society relationship. For researchers who are drawn to the merits of comparative urban studies, this book is invaluable."

- Journal of Urban Affairs

Cities for Profit

"Scholars, policy makers, and urban planners could benefit from this excellent, comprehensive research. The reading is essential to students and scholars of urban theory and policy, urban studies in Asia, and Asian political economy in general."

"Cities for Profit breaks new conceptual ground in the study of global urbanism at the start of the new millennium. The writing is clear, the analysis is pathbreaking, and the approach is innovative. Gavin Shatkin helps us understand how urban megaprojects come about, the patterns of their spatial dispersal, and their social impact on local urban communities."

"This excellent comparative study of real-estate-based urban development in Asia is essential reading for all urbanists. This book should change how urban scholars and practitioners, residents and policymakers think about and engage in the politics of making urban futures."

- Jennifer Robinson, University College London, author of Ordinary Cities